European psychiatry : the journal of the Association of European Psychiatrists
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Public health monitoring is commonly undertaken in social media but has never been combined with data analysis from electronic health records. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between the emergence of novel psychoactive substances (NPS) in social media and their appearance in a large mental health database. ⋯ Combined analysis of information from social media and data from mental health records may assist public health and clinical surveillance for certain substance-related events of interest. There exists potential for early warning systems for health-care practitioners.